The Courage Performance Blog

I'll start this post with a review of my first ever weightlifting event. Turns out it was a historic event with something like 209 competitors in total, and myself and my training partner were "lucky" enough to be in the absolute last heat! The California State Games are run similar to the Olympics in that there are Summer and Winter Games. Each season begins in a slew of events covering a good collection of sports, and from what I could find, there seems to be a pretty good history of some highly successful athletes who have come through to compete. Unfortunately they take pl;ace in San Diego and started in early July so I wasn't able to attend the opening ceremonies and all the awesome crazy that apparently happened. I got to show up late Saturday night, hang out until late Sunday afternoon and then trek out to a pretty damn secluded CrossFit gym that was hosting the weightlifting event over the course of three days.

I'll make two comments on the organization of the whole thing before going into my experience. First, the thing was run damn smoothly. I think they were maybe off by one or two minutes here and there and that is incredibly impressive given the amount of people they had coming through. Not sure how they pulled it off, but it's really cool they did and I respect the hell out of the organizers for running such a tight ship. The unfortunate aspect of the whole event was that it took us almost 40 minutes to find the place. There was no instruction anywhere explaining where the crazy hidden gym was actually located and there were no signs posted anywhere showing anyone the way. We drove all over the place and finally found our way to an office park, behind another office park, here the gym was wedged in. The warm up area was cramped and muggy, the weigh-in room was in a hoarders-type room with old medical equipment stacked to the ceiling, and the platform was under a tent, outside in the tiny behind-the-offices parking lot. At first we were completely thrown off by the seemingly makeshift set up of everything. The location of the entire place was so out in the middle of nowhere that I think we were more frustrated than anything. But once we settled into the whole thing, we mostly forgot about how sketchy everything was and just enjoyed ourselves.

So, on to the experience. I was feeling good and prepared, not nervous or anything, just excited to experience something new! I chose to open with 95kg (209lbs), a weight I was sure I could hit and all I wanted to do was make sure I got at least one successful lift! They announced when I was on deck, I strolled out to the awkward waiting area behind a tent on a sidewalk where there were a few chairs and pulled up the top of my singlet. When they announced it was my turn, I chalked up my hands, approached the bar, took and breath and ripped it over my head. It honestly felt like it was 20 pounds, just flew up in a power snatch. It almost knocked me over! I dropped the bar, nodded to the judges and walked back off the platform to announce my next attempt to the announcer. I'd go for 100kg (220lbs). It went exactly the same as the first lift, but this time I over-tensed up and the forward pull of the bar sent me running to the front of the platform. I was able to catch my balance with locked out arms just as my toe reached the front of the wood and the head judge was ready to dive out of the way to save his own life! Two whites, one red, good lift (there are three judges who award you wither a red or white "light"; you need two or all three whites for a good lift)! I initially asked for 103, but then said what the hell, I'll go for 105kg (231 and would be a PR). Just missed it! Oh well, I was happy with 100.

After that I was able to chill for a bit before warming up the clean and jerk. Still feeling good! I hit my opening lift of 130kg (286lbs) and again, it felt like an empty bar. It almost knocked me over it felt so light, and I actually felt like I was trying to stop the bar from flying straight up o the jerk. I was happy with that feeling. I announced my second attempt at 135 (297 and a potential PR clean AND jerk). Caught it a little forward but it was smooth all around. I was stoked for that lift. Next was my choice of going for 140, or playing it safe and going for a somewhat reasonable 138. Went back and forth a little and chose to go for 138 (303.6). Hit it!! Made 5 out of 6 lifts and got a 238 total. Very happy (and I beat Mike by 3 kilos!!!!). What an awesome experience all around, and I am really looking forward to doing more and more of these coming up.

OK, after the fun was over and I got back, I was back to training today. Felt crazy slow under the bar for the weightlifting complexes I have programmed for this next phase, but the tough part was the new phase of powerlifts we have coming up; sick! Working quickly up to our heaviest triple, then down and back up with doubles, then down and back up on singles, LOTS of lifting heavy weights!! Additionally I am adding some CrossFit style workouts back to the program and while today's was fun (power snatches, rope climbs, muscle ups and HSPU's) it felt like I hadn't done a tough workout like that in years. It'll be interesting incorporating these back into the program on a regular basis now, especially since I really want to get my weightlifting total form 238 to 260 as soon as I can!

The program I'm on now is filled with lots of heavy weightlifting, serious squatting at constantly heavy weights, heavy pressing and heavy deadlifting. Very carefully programmed accessory work and now, some regular accessory-based metcons. I've been feeling so good with everything, I can't wait to see how far this gets me over the course of the next couple months.

It's been a while since I've written about my own programming and how it's going, so I thought I'd share. It's been going well. I've steered away from the classic CrossFit plan and more towards a straight up strength and weightlifting focus, it's been fun to say the least! While I do enjoy getting my butt kicked in the gym with a brutal metcon here and there, I do very much enjoy the day to day demands of a very serious strength training program. I am watching my numbers creep up slowly but surely, and when I keep my food in check, my mood, energy, and weight all keep getting better and better.

The best part about the program as of late is that i have a group of people to workout with. Team Courage has been a slowly building project at the gym and as of now we have five really serious members, and another 3 who are a tad less involved. The energy around this group looking through the programming and hitting the gym hard has been one of the best aspects of my training I've ever had. Couple that with the feeling of pride I have every day when I walk into y own gym with the big orange wall and my logo on it, I just feel good about where everything is going.

So, the program itself is using three major sources as its motivation: the strength program I wrote two years ago that saw 100% success rate in all athletes who've gone through the whole thing, a very, very base level conceptual feel for the Bulgarian Method of training, and some aspects to how a few of the Catalyst Athletics weightlifting programs have been designed. I can comfortably say that this program is about 98% mine (most/all good programs use tons of research and ideas taken from other programs already in existence) and to be honest, I have an idea of what will come out of it at the end, but I am really curious to see just how big some of our gains will be.

We are pulling heavy weights from the blocks each day (working 80% and up on all sets) and then our strength work is seeing about 8+ programed sets each day. It's pretty brutal having to work up to 100+% of your 5RM or 3RM and then head back down to 85% and work back up again. The combination of load and volume is something that has taken a little to adapt to. But, I feel like I'm adapting pretty well and I am feeling stronger each day. My drill work with the Olympic lifts is now consistently only 10-15# below my best ever lift. While this is depressing that my 1RM sucks, it's promising that I am getting more efficient and consistent at heavy loads. Here's what a typical week looks like:

It's been intense, but real fun. I am hoping to get to my first ever Weightlifting meet this coming weekend, but it's way down in San Diego and I am not sure I can get there. We'll see. Either way, it'd be SO much fun to actually compete at this stuff. I am setting up goals slowly but surely.

My food has gotten under control and I am down to around 235# consistently. I think that I'd feel my best around 225-230 and I'll probably be there next week and will plan to stay there for the next few training cycles. I have a lot going on, and all going in the right direction, so that's cool in my head.

Have a good deal of business and personal stuff going on that could be a lot better, and I will be filling everyone in on the details about all that pretty soon. TONS of growth for the company coming up but I want to keep some of it under wraps until things are 100% confirmed. I will also fill people in with some of the crummy stuff that has led to all this good stuff as well. Should be an exciting few months for sure. I do like writing about my workouts and programs, so I'll be sure to make a point to continue doing that as the summer progresses.

Last night I lost it; more so than I ever have in the gym. It reminded me of the SuperFit Games last January, when I just had zero ability to execute a specific movement, forcing me to DNF the workout. But this time around it was a bit different. I expected to perform, and I did not. It was an epic failure and it allowed me to grow more in the gym then I have in the past few weeks combined. If I am living on the edge at all times, last night I tripped over the edge. Thankfully I was able to grab an overhanging branch and get back up to that edge, and because of that I am a better man. I'll go into a little detail here, but I am in the process of writing a big article on failure.

I personally "enjoy" failure. I feel that without it, we fail to stay humble and keep an objective, critical perspective on what we are doing. Failing pisses me off, angers me, completely humiliates and crushes me; but in the end, when I am able to sit down and look back at what just happened, I can take a better view of it. I instantaneously have a massive amount of data that allows me to analyze whether or not my programming is as effective as it could be. I am able to honestly see my weaknesses and assess the best way to go about making them, well, not my weaknesses anymore. I'm not going to lie, having this point of view is not as easy as it might appear with me writing it. Most of the time this does not occur to me right after the workout is over. I generally have a handful of depressing, negative thoughts like: "I am horrible at this", "I should just quit", "I want a large pizza and ten beers". But the more I experience failure, the more I push myself to my physical limits, and I am able see the positive side of things so much quicker.

So, after a tough day, I woke up today ready to pick things up. I went to the pool for a 1200 meter anyhow workout. Still not very impressive by any means, but I feel a ton better than last time. My hope is that getting in the water as often as I plan in the coming months will result in very quick gains. Later on, Lindsey met me at the gym and I put together a confusing chipper. I say this because it was filled with tons of variations of common CrossFit exercises. I have been noticing lately that CrossFit is getting more and more strict about how things are performed: games style push ups, palms out muscle ups, heel on box box jumps, and on and on. While I am not necessarily opposed to this, I miss the concept of complete unconventionality. Why does a wall ball HAVE to be 10 feet? Why aren't two exercises combined? Why can't a plyo box, or a KB, or a bar or anything, be used for a totally different reason than generally prescribed? I totally understand having standards to all exercises, but why can't the standards be different on a regular, or random basis. CrossFit calls for the unknown and unknowable, so, I enjoy sticking to that here and there. Expect to see some of that in February by the way...(you'll know what I'm talking about very soon!).

For time do:3 x 6 pull ups to 6 toes to bar (unbroken you just perform 6 of each back and forth for three rounds)20 wall balls to a 15 foot target 20#50 air squats20 KB snatches each arm 53#100 double unders20 GHD back extensions50 walking lunges (total steps)20 jump overs 24" box (just jump over it, turn around, jump back over it)12 pull ups to crawl-unders (I secured a PVC pipe in my 16" plyo boxes with sandbags. Perform a pull ups, crawl under the PVC, that's one rep)

I completed this in 13:36 and was done. My back and neck were so tight after yesterday's debacle with HSPUs that once I hit the KB snatches, I started to tense up a bit. The back extensions and finally the crawl-unders were a deadly combo. I probably would have enjoyed this a bit more had I not been so tight; but, it was a total blast. My mind was racing because I was able to recognize everything I was doing, but something was off, just slightly. Pretty cool. I strongly suggest doing this sort of thing at least once or twice a month, just to keep the body guessing.

Video is being edited...

Tomorrow is a rest/travel day that has Lindsey and I flying back east for a bit over week to hang with family. I will try to post as much as I can, but I am sure I'll skip a day or two with how much I'll be moving about. Look for an update on the CrossFit Community Month soon, and a HUGE announcement!!

Never Stop, GET FIT.

Josh Courage

Tomorrow is a rest/travel day that has Lindsey and I flying back east for a bit over week to hang with family. I will try to post as much as I can, but I am sure I'll skip a day or two with how much I'll be moving about. Look for an update on the CrossFit Community Month soon, and a HUGE announcement!!